This study aims at assessing the relation between hypoalbuminemia and inhospital mortality in patients with acute stroke. In this cross-sectional study, a total of 112 consecutively admitted patients with first acute stroke in Ahvaz Jundishapur Hospital were enrolled. All patients hospitalized for 7-9 days or expired in this period of time. Admission hypoalbuminemia (serum albumin<3.5 mg dL-1) as well as other prognostic factors were determined and compared between the two groups. One hundred and twelve patients, 74 males and 38 females with the mean age of 69.2±12.1 (66-79) years were enrolled. Twenty nine (25.9%) patients expired during the hospitalization. Totally, admission hypoal buminemia was present in 49 (43.8%) patients. 43% of the patients were Hypoalbuminemia. Frequency of patients with admission hypoalbuminemia and is chemic heart disease was significantly higher in the nonsurvivors (75.8- 32.5%, p = 0.001; 34.5 vs. 16.9%, p = 0.047, respectively). The mean Glasgow Coma Scale score was significantly lower in the nonsurvivors (8.1±1.8 vs. 9.4±0.5, p = 0.003). These three parameters remained significant in multivariate analysis. Sex, age, history of hypertension, diabetes mellitus, hypertriglyceridemia, hypercholesterolemia, anemia, heart failure and smoking habit, admission atrial fibrillation, ethnicity and stroke type were comparable between the two groups. In conclusion, hypoalbuminemia is an independent predictor of inhospital mortality in patients with acute stroke.

Stroke is the third leading cause of death in the United States. Each year
approximately 700000 people are affected by stroke in the West and on average;
one patient expires eventually every 3 min (Thom et al.,
2006; CDC, 2002). The inhospital mortality rate
varies between 5-3% according to the type of stroke (ischemic or hemorrhagic)
(Liebeskind et al., 2006; Gillum
and Johnston, 2001). It is generally believed that the early death after
stroke is mainly attributable to the disease itself, whereas the death after
acute phase is due to the hospitalization and the related complications during
this period (Famakin et al., 2010). Identifying
possible factors in early death after stroke may be useful in designing screenin
g programs for early detection of high-risk patients, which in turn would lead
to decreased avoidable mortality rate. These etiologies have been extensively
evaluated in previous studies and are diverse such as the severity and type
of stroke, type of ischemia, volume of hemorrhage, age of patient, level of
consciousness, hyperglycemia, etc. However, these factors have been in majority
associated with the final outcome; i.e. weeks or months after the first episode
of stroke (Cucchiara et al., 2004; Frankel
et al., 2000; Hamidon and Raymond, 2003).
Hypoalbuminemia may be an indirect marker of systemic conditions such as malnutrition
and patients with low albumin levels may have other underlying chronic medical
or neurologic conditions that impair their ability to recover from acute stroke.
Alternatively, low albumin levels at the time of acute stroke may simply be
indicative of the role of albumin as a negative acute phase reactant whose concentration
decreases during acute inflammatory states (Ebersole and
Cappelli, 2000). Despite its importance, hypoalbuminemia has not been widely
evaluated as a predictor of mortality after acute stroke. In a study by Dziedzic
et al. (2007) hypoalbuminemia was a frequent finding in acute stroke
patients and it was associated with more severe stroke and pro-inflammatory
pattern of serum protein electrophoresis. Zuliani et
al. (2006) also reported that the hypoalbuminemia was an independent
risk factor for short-term mortality in patients with acute ischemic stroke.
To the best of our knowledge all the studies in this regard have been conducted
in the West. It is believed that the ethnicity and even demographic factorsmay
influence the role of prognostic determinants of stroke (Heuschmann
et al., 2004). This main aim of this study is to assess the association
of hypoalbuminemia in a group of Arab and Azari Iranian patients with stroke
with the inhospital outcome.

MATERIALS AND MATHODS

In this cross-sectional study, 184 patients with first acute stroke were recruited during a 12-month period from June 2009 to June 2010 in Ahvaz Golestan and Imam Reza Teaching Hospitals. This hospital is a main referral center for the neurologic diseases in the south-west and north-east of Iran. The study was carried out on 112 cases out of the first 184 patients. Patients characteristics and basic data including age, sex, ethnicity (Arab, Azari), Glasgow Coma Scale score, smoking status, atrial fibrillation on admission and coexisting disease including previous heart failure, ischemic heart disease, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, hyperlipidemia, hypercholesterolemia and anemia, stroke type (ischemic, hemorrhagic), admission serum albumin and hypoalbuminemia and inhospital death were ascertained. Hypertension was defined as a systolic blood pressure > 140, diastolic blood pressure > 90 mmHg or a positive history of taking antihypertensive medication. Diabetes mellitus was defined as a fasting plasma glucose > 126 mg dL-1 or a positive history of taking diabetic medication. Hypertriglyceridemia was defined as a fasting serum triglyceride level > 200 mg dL-1 or a positive history of taking lipid-lowering drugs.

Hypercholesterolemia was defined as a fasting total serum cholesterol level
> 240 mg dL-1 or a positive history of taking cholesterol-lowering
drugs. Anemia was defined as hemoglobin level<12 mg dL-1 in males
or <11 mg dL-1 in females (Fauci et al.,
2008). Serum albumin concentration was measured in a blood sample obtained
by venipuncture from all participants using a Hitachi 737 Analyzer (Boehringer-Mannheim
Diagnostics; USA) (McQuillan et al., 1990). Hypoalbuminemia
was defined as a serum albumin leve l<3.5 mg dL-1 (Dziedzic
et al., 2007). All patients were discharged or expired 7-9 days after
acute stroke. Patients with conditions other than the parenchymal brain hemorrhage
were excluded. The mentioned variables were compared between the survivors and
nonsurvivors. This study was approved by the ethics committee of Ahvaz and Tabriz
Universities of Medical Sciences. Statistical analysis was performed using the
SPSS software (Chicago, IL), version 15.0. Data are presented as mean±standard
deviation or frequency (percent). Independent samples t-test, Chi-square test
or Fishers Exact test were used for analysis where appropriate. Logistic
regression test was used for multivariate analysis. p-value of <0.05 was
considered significant.

RESULTS

One hundred and twelve patients, 74 (66.1%) males and 38 (33.9%) females with
the mean age of 69.2±12.1 (66-79) years were enrolled. The mean Glasgow
Coma Scale score was 8.8±1.6 (8-10). Regarding the ethnicity, 67 (59.8%)
patents were Azari and 45 (40.2%) patients were Arabs. The stroke was is chemic
Type in 82 (73.2%) patients and hemorrhagic type in 30 (26.8%) patients .

In this well-controlled study, independent association of admission hypoalbuminemia
with short-term (inhospital) mortality in stroke patients was documented. Albumin
concentrations have long been used as a measure of health and disease. Many
conditions such as undernutrition, catabolism, and liver and renal disease may
reduce serum albumin concentrations. The catabolic state and the associated
neuroendocrine response that is likely to follow an acute stroke may lead to
altered serum albumin concentrations and there is recent evidence linking the
high stress reaction after stroke and undernutrition (Gariballa
et al., 1998). Although the data in this regard are scarce in the
literature; there are inconclusive, as well. Rordorf
et al. (2000) did not report hypoalbuminemia among predictors of mortality
in stroke patients admitted to the intensive care unit (Rordorf
et al., 2000) This is in contrast with our finding. It should be
noticed that the above study was conducted in a retrospective manner and so
this decreases its value. In another study evaluating predictors of short-term
mortality in patients with stroke, hypoalbuminemia was found to be a predictor
of mortality in older patients (median age 80 years) in the univariate analysis,
but not in the multivariate analysis (Zuliani et al.,
2006). The result of this study is also in contrast with ours. Older age
of its patients may justify the difference in results. In our study, the mean
age of patients was 69.2 years which is much less than 80 years in above investigation.
In older age, finding a significant independent contributor to death may be
very hard, because there are many risk factors in this regard. In fact, very
old patients with acute stroke show a differential clinical profile, different
frequency of stroke subtypes, and a poorer outcome compared with stroke patients
who are younger (Arboix et al., 2000). On the
other hand, in a recent series by Famakin et al.
(2010) 1477 patients admitted with acute stroke were evaluated. The inhospital
death rate was 10%. Univariate analysis showed that mortality was associated
with older age, stroke type, Glasgow Coma Scale score less than 9, decreased
serum albumin, elevated creatinine, and elevated blood glucose. In the multivariate
analysis, independent risk factors for mortality after acute stroke included
older age, stroke type, Glasgow Coma Scale score less than 9, and decreased
serum albumin. There was no relationship between race and inhospital mortality.
The serum level of albumin was less than 3.4 mg dL-1 in the expired
group. Comparing with our findings, we also did not a relationship between race
and mortality. Likewise, the hypoalbuminemia was also an independent predictor
of inhospital mortality. The mean serum level of albumin was 3.1 mg dL-1
in nonsurvived patients which is similar to the reported figure in above study.
In addition, we did not find any other risk factor for inhospital mortality
except for the ischemic heart disease and Glasgow Coma Scale score. This is
also in conformity with previous reports (Sweileh, 2008).
Dziedzic et al. (2007) measured albumin and other
serum protein fractions within 36 h after ischemic stroke using electrophoresis.
Hypoalbuminemia defined as serum albumin level <3.5 mg dL-1 was
found in 45.5% of patients. It was associated with more severe stroke and pro-inflammatory
pattern of serum protein electrophoresis. The frequency of hypoalbuminemia was
43.8% in our series which is very near to the reported rate in mentioned study.
Likewise, the association between hypoalbuminemia and poor outcome of patients
with stroke is similar in two studies, as well. Freire et
al. (2005) showed that o nly severe admission hypoalbuminemia (<2
mg dL-1) is independently associated with poor outcome in patients
with acute stroke (Freire et al., 2005). We did
not calculate an optimal cut-off point in this regard due to small sample size
needed for this propose. Further studies with larger sample sizes may be helping.
Gariballa et al. (1998) concluded that the serum
albumin concentration in the hospital was a strong and independent predictor
of mortality at 3 months after acute stroke with hazard ratio of 0.91 for a
0.1 mg dL-1 higher serum albumin concentration. They proposed that
whether nutritional supplementation with albumin removes or mitigates the hazard
of poor outcome associated with undernutrition after acute stroke needs to be
determined. Although the relative risk of hypoalbuminemia in prediction of death
(4.2) was higher in our study, the result of current study is in line with the
mentioned report. It should be noticed that the mortality rate was not determined
during the hospitalization period in above study. It is not known whether reversing
hypoalbuminemia or maintaining adequate albumin levels in patients with acute
stroke will decrease mortality. An ongoing clinical trial of intravenous albumin
may shed some light on the effect of treatment of patients with acute ischemic
stroke (Ginsberg et al., 2006).

CONCLUSION

In current study, we report hypoalbuminemia as an independent predictor of
inhospital mortality for acute stroke in a referral center in Iran. We propose
routine serum albumin measurement in management of patients with acute stroke
to stratify cases at high risk for inhospital mortality.

McQuillan, G.M., E.W. Gunter and L. Lannom, 1990. Field issues for the plan and operation of the laboratory component of the third national health and nutrition examination survey. J. Nutr., 120: 1446-1450.PubMed | Direct Link |